Today was mail day at my house . . . I don't have my own key for the mailbox yet so I'm at the mercy of strangers on motorcycles to drop off my mail at least once a week. It's not the ideal situation, but I'm getting by. Lots of interesting stuff in the mail today -- bills of course (I didn't think I had so many!), new cheques with my name and new address printed in the top left corner, my official acceptance into the Maritime Writers' workshop (hmmm, maybe I CAN go if I don't get the scholarship), and a letter from a friend with two new books. I can't help myself of course, flip open the books, and soon I'm lost . . . taking an impromptu break from work . . . oops! The bus to Fredericton, Edmundston and beyond has left the town and I missed it, packages must wait another day . . . I'm absorbed.
Something triggers a memory . . . I'm 12, on the edge of adolescence, in a matter of months I will be staying out all night, running around with boys, drinking, smoking, experimenting . . . but for right now I'm 12 and I'm alone in my parents bedroom. I'm lying on the bed (green bedspread) fiddling with the tuner on the clock radio. The radio rests in the middle of a headboard that is sectioned in three -- a sliding door on each end, open in the centre. I'm 12 and I have no idea there is a big world outside my house . . . or more precisely that I am in it. We don't have cable or satellite television. This is before MTV, before VCRs, before . . .
I'm 12 years old and carefully turning the AM radio dial to discover the world. Mostly static, the whine of signals, the local station playing Back to the Bible comes in loud and clear but I can't get Fredericton or Saint John there's too much white noise. But suddenly there's music and it's clear. A channel I've never heard before, songs I don't know . . . You can ring my bell, ring my bell . . . and then an announcer saying, Dubya-N-BC, stressing the N, holding it in his mouth. He talks strange, pronounces things differently, plays music I've never heard before. I lay back and listen until my mom makes me turn it off and go to bed. I return in the daytime but the channel only magically appears at night. My dad says the air is clearer then, that the radio picks up signals from way down in the states, as far away as New York City. At night I listen to WNBC and feel like I'm partaking in the world . . . this is live radio, the man speaking to me is right then sitting in a booth in New York City and I'm listening . . . I'm listening along with thousands of others from who even knows where . . . but I'm a part of it. I'm in it.
This is my first memory (though it may not be the first time) of me questioning what was beyond Miramichi, beyond New Brunswick, beyond Canada even. This is the beginning of the development of the curiosity and instinct that led me to Toronto . . . to Sackville even . . . that will lead me to other places. I'm glad to have thought of this today.
Mood: Achy
Drinking: Cold coffee
Listening To: The hum of my computer
Hair: . . . oh boy! Touchy subject today.
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